The Abysswalker
by SomeDamn Author
Summary: As the world crumbles down to an end, one final unlikely savior is summoned. A nameless entity awakens long after Uzumaki Naruto in order to do what the great man couldn't.
1. Faded Gold

**A/N : Do leave a review by, be it criticism or encouragement :)**

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**I. Faded Gold**

* * *

The abyss pulled. It consumed, a slow, painful descent into nothingness. It ate sound, it ate light, it ate being, it ate existence. and that which was spat back was mangled beyond recognition, the very core of that entity's origin reversed.

"_You are nothing."_

He felt himself rising, yet he was dying at the same time, drowning in something.

"_You are no one."_

He was no one. He remembered not who he was, who he had been. He simply existed at that moment and at that moment alone, a forlorn, deserted remnant from an age that wasn't his own.

"_Yet that is why you will succeed, where even the great Uzumaki Naruto failed."_

He opened his eyes, and a deep, rich blue invaded his vision, tearing away at him like knives. It felt detestable, vision. Vision was a sign of life, and somehow life felt cursed, like it should not have existed in the first place.

"_Uzumaki was a great man, and you are a faded, accursed existence."_

The name meant naught to him. He did not know who Uzumaki Naruto was, what he had done, why he was renowned and what he had failed at.

"_Rise, my beloved son. You come from nowhere, are the son of no one, and come with nothing. And in my heart of hearts, I know that is why you shall succeed."_

The blue was turning lighter, and the woman's soft, mellow voice slowly faded into his senses. First vision, now hearing. His inexplicable revulsion at being able to see and hear and _feel_ was fading too. He was inching closer and closer to the surface. Reams of light streamed in, refracting amidst the rich blue of the water he was drowning in.

"_Rise, my beloved son, for you must destroy the abyss and right my wrongs."_

His hands twitched of their own accord, and then he was able to move them. He stretched, inching that much closer to that elusive surface, and suddenly he rose faster than ever.

"_Rise, Faded One."_

He opened his mouth, and the invasive liquid filled it, burning and eliciting a deep, primal scream. He flailed, legs and arms thrashing about. The light was near, it was so, so near...

And then, silence.

* * *

He sat up, panting painfully. There was no light, just a dark, empty cell, lit dimly by a torch flickering outside. A long corridor stretched out beyond the rusted gate of his cell, illumined by more torches spaced sparsely. Silence reigned, save for water dripping from the dank cieling onto a small puddle on the stone floor.

And as the torpor was ripped apart by the sound of the bell ringing somewhere high above the rocky roof of his prison, the boy looked into the shallow puddle next to where was sitting up.

In the faint orange of the sparse fires, he saw a young, gaunt face with straggled blonde hair look back at him, the last semblances of lifelesness fading away within those blue eyes.

* * *

Elsewhere, in an age long past, the worn and broken man named Uzumaki Naruto had smiled wryly, straightening his back and readying his stance one final time. Uchiha Sasuke had stood in front of him, malformed and irreparably consumed by the same abyss that the Uchiha had created when he had started the Revolution.

The battle between the two forgotten men had long since begun.

_Estranged cadences,_

_Devoid, pulses of_

_naught emanate,_

_Engulfing You, standing_

_Insensate, alone._

_..._

_Watching glances of_

_Light advance, recede,_

_A last cry for hope._

_Faint residues with dark_

_elope, you smile._

_..._

_The umbra whispers soft._

_Amber glimmers_

_descend unto palms_

_held aloft, the source._

_Calm, it flickers._

_..._

_One day Gold shall dance,_

_Again, a chance shall_

_embrace this world._

_Yet now I witness it_

_unfurled, I end._

_..._

_The bleeding light, a_

_Divine sight._

_It screams, agony_

_Long after it all._

_A dream, never awoken._

_..._

_Quietus_

_Reigns again._

* * *

**End.**

**An idea that I've been toying with for a while, until the inspiration was actually overwhelming. Inspired by Dark Souls, especially the atmosphere and the references to the 'abyss', and one of my own musings on my short-fic collection 'Of Tales To Be Told'. Details are intentionally sparse. Hopefully I've enough fuel to see this fic through!**


	2. Shrine

**A/N : Thank you so much for your reviews. They went a long way in making me shape this. Do keep telling me what you think :)**

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**II. Shrine**

* * *

He moved, a twitch of the arm first, and then a shoulder, then a leg. The boy's face contorted slightly, a natural impulse as he slowly rose to a standing albeit hunched position.

"Na-"

He turned slowly at the sound. The loose garment draped around his lower body shook.

"Na-"

In the cold darkness of the cell, he could see a pale body on the wet floor in the far corner. It was splayed across the floor, spread-eagled. He walked towards it, slow footsteps weighing against the silence. The boy drew closer, and stopped when he could see the body clearly, illumined with a sombre orange.

"Na-...Nar-"

The body on the floor was young, as young as he himself was. A pale face adorned with near-dead hazy eyes, and dark black hair looked at him. The blonde-haired boy stared back silently. The body was croaking a single syllable over and over, yet it was the eyes that caught his attention, eliciting an old, primal emotion.

"Na-nnnnnnnnnnnnnnghhh-"

He reached out, trying to meet the person's slowly outstretched hand, yet he was met only with ash and the futile moan of death. The boy watched as the body easily faded into a grey smoke, and just as quickly into nothing.

"Aaaah." He opened his mouth, feeling the rumble in his throat. His eyes were wide, and yet another old emotion coursed through him, a deep, dark blue. He knelt, a gleam on the floor where the boy's body had been only moments ago catching his eye. His hands scrabbled against the wet stone floor, until they found something cold and hard. He picked it up.

He stood again, this time faster, easier. The crackling of the torches seemed to get even louder as he walked towards the door. In the light, the object in his hands took on a newfound vigor, the dull orange dancing away on the surface of the old key.

He slotted the key into the hole, and with an abrasive sound, the door to his cell opened outwards. He stepped out. One step, then the next, then the next.

"Aaaaaaah-"

Then the next, then the next, then the next. He opened his mouth, obeying instinct.

"Aaaah- Ahhhh-"

The deep blue within him turned deeper, and his cheeks took on the same orange hue as the corridor as the boy walked, trying to force out the emotion that ebbed, flowed and welled within him.

* * *

His walk was unmeasured, and he would often trip with a clatter of footsteps as he made his way through the long, winding tunnel. And then, ever so slowly, the orange started waging a losing battle against a dull, hazy brown. A diffused sunlight permeated through the tunnel, and before long the exit was in view.

The afternoon was placid, a liquid sense of peace anointing the air. The faint whiff of smoke drew the boy's attention forward, and he followed the hints. The rocky structures around him suddenly gave way to a small, yet deep valley, and in the center lay the small, flickering bonfire, a lone figure standing by it.

"Ah, you're here, Faded One."

He walked down the rugged carved steps towards the center, strangely attracted to not the person but the flame. On the opposite side, in the far distance the massive structure loomed, a natural creation yet seemingly marred by something else. Indiscernable huge faces were carved on the side of the mountain, but they were decrepit and broken. He stopped, staring at it for a second before continuing downwards towards the bonfire.

"Come, restore the flame."

Her voice drifted out, kissing the silence as if it were her own child. He drew close, close enough for the flame to cast its glow on him, but inexplicably no closer. On the other side, she stood, tall, fair and pristine, clothed in white. Her eyes were fixed on him, drinking in his form.

Yet she wasn't unnatural, she wasn't out of place in a decaying world. The massive red eye in the center of her forehead never blinked, and her long white hair never moved.

He stared at her, meeting the gaze. Silence returned, yet only ephemerally. The slowly dying flames reduced to a mere last few flickers, and it was the when the gold completely left the woman's eyes when he drew the key, and dropped it into the bonfire's old stone base.

A roar emanated from within him, and he dropped to his knees, his mouth wide open in the ghost of a scream he should've rightly felt when he had seen that boy die in his cell. The tears that he couldn't coerce then came now, inexorable.

"AAAAAAAAHHH-"

He was grief, and only that. Not want, not pain, not love, just grief. He clutched his head, lying down. He had known that person. He had known him, one last strand of hope in this dead world that had killed him. There was no going back, there was no return for that one life, and he had seen him die so easily. The feeling of loss coursed through him, exposing a void within that seemed like it would never-

"I grieve with you, my son."

He didn't know when she'd sat down next to him. He didn't know when she'd placed his head on her lap. But when he opened his eyes, all he saw were tears in her pale ones, some of them falling on him and wetting his cheek, and the rest wetting the soft fabric of her white clothing. The afternoon sky was blue, clear.

* * *

"Three beings remain, Faded One. I know not who they are, but simply that you must vanquish them just as you did the first person you met."

He was sitting in front of the now alive and lively flame, and she on the other side.

"Three entities were given portions of the abyss to hold by Uchiha Sasuke. The fourth, and final portion is within that man Sasuke himself, an old, ancient being who still thrives but only just, almost destroyed by Uzumaki Naruto. But to be in the same realm as him, you must free the other three souls, and absorb the that portion of the abyss into yourself, just as you have done with the first portion."

He drunk deep from the sight of the flame, bringing his hands towards it as he did so. They were young hands, and they were unblemished.

"Uzumaki Naruto once suppressed the abyss within Uchiha Sasuke, sealing it, but it seems he wasn't succesful in extinguishing it entirely. That, my son, is your purpose."

She spoke with a rising joy, pride and hope shading a voice only slightly augmented by an old sadness, but that weak dark blue of grief was the only thing the boy truly saw in what he percieved was an otherwise colorless, hopeless voice.

He stood, turning without a second glance to his protector. He knew where he had to go first. Afternoon had been replaced with a cold, foreboding evening sky. And under that very sky he would have to forage south, to vanquish the first of the three that remained.

"Princess Kaguya shall keep the flame alive until you return, Faded One."

The Faded One walked away from the Shrine, given by the singular purpose She had given him, yet even that seemed small in the face of the only emotion he was now capable of feeling.

Her mellifluous voice sang again, dancing in the wind as he receded.

_The whispers, quiet at first_

_So soft you'd doubt you'd ever heard, _

_Yet still, yet melding into the air._

_Yet slow it steps, Yet without care,_

_An effect, profound, truly absurd._

...

_The whispers herald fear, _

_Of grief, of sorrow. Even though you're near_

_You're truly far away, knowing _

_Not how long you'll stay,_

_Chained, tethered, I wait here,_

...

_Unstrung. It unsettles, _

_A cruel foe, the silence proves _

_Elusive. We step and turn, _

_With sadness that you can't discern, _

_A sadness scarce removed. _

...

_A truly deep seated gaze, _

_Yet transient in time and space, _

_For a thousand times I'd feel the pain_

_To know you just once again, _

_While life dances on your face._

* * *

**End.**


	3. Dancer

**A/N : A trying chapter to write, but it felt quite rewarding. Do leave a review by, tell me what I can change, or what I can retain. I appreciate them all :)**

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**III. Dancer**

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It had started to rain, the murkiness of the evening sky dripping down onto all that lay below. A few drops fell on him as he walked. His dry skin absorbed it almost immediately, developing a moistness that wasn't there prior. He felt naught of the rain, the otherwise cold prickles that should have discomforted him as he walked south the way the crow would fly.

'_Uzumaki Naruto once suppressed the abyss within Uchiha Sasuke-'_

The forest thickened slightly, he had walked a fair distance from the shine. The first name elicited nothing, but the second caused his heart to twitch. A shadow of the same twinge of grief that had resonated with him earlier as She had cradled his head in Her lap.

'_Uchiha Sasuke.'_

A single drop fell on his eyelid. There was no sign of life, yet he was cognizant of the shift. The forest thinned out again, the deep, dark black-and-green starting to meld with the duller glow of yellow as he neared it.

He stood, staring up at the structure in front of him. The forest stopped, unpleasant and harsh, a sure sign of human effort to cull nature. The mud under his feet stopped being that, replaced by broken stone. In front of him the decrepit mansion stood reeking of a lack of life, yet somehow eerily unstill, undead.

He walked forward, slipping past the crumbled gate, thin as he was. The loose black garment he wore beneath his torso caught in one of the sharp wooden edges and tore, but not enough to stop him.

The compound was empty. The familiar sound of flames licking away caught him, and he turned right. An entrance of sorts was illumined, two flames burning away, starkly out of place in a mansion long since abandoned.

_Crack_

An unnatural sound whipped through the evening air. He only had a second to react before the figure lunged at him from above the half-eaten roof.

He stepped back, but not enough. The figure, only slightly larger than him, landed on him as he collapsed painfully, yet without the sensation itself.

"Aaaaaahhhh-" He croaked, his half-lidded eyes opening full and wide to see the visage on top. Obscured by long, wild hair, but a thin and pale face stared down at him all the same. His lips were twisted into a snarl that spoke of an untold hatred, but all the boy could see was an old, longing sadness in them.

"She sends another, yet again."

The person on top of him spoke with a precise voice that was marred by the cracked harshness of a rarely-used throat.

"You will not enter, boy. Hear this, and heed it. I have been here longer than you have." Pale hands stretched out, clasping his neck on either side, tightening with a crude sense of purpose.

He responded in kind, his hands reached out. Slow movements dictated both of their moves as they stared into each other's eyes, shocking blue meeting pale white. Yet while the man on top was dictated to kill, the boy laying down reached forward and touched the pale man's face lightly.

Shock, in those pale eyes. The intent to kill meeting the intent to caress. The snarl deepened.

"Who- Who has She sent this time?"

The touch on the cheek deepened, his entire palm now on the pale man's face, even as he felt his throat being methodically constricted. His vision blurred as he gasped, but his hand didn't leave the man's face.

"WHO ARE YOU, CURSED ONNNNNE?"

The scream ignited the air, the rest of the torches in the abandoned mansion's air lit up, roaring life into the deadened sight of two forgone entities. The grip on his throat tightened even more, the last push to snuff out a life. A moment longer he held the caress on the pale man's cheeks before the primality took over him too and the chakra extended from somewhere deep within him.

_Crrrrack_

A crackle of gold, and they separated. The man above him rolled over, blasted by the golden chakra that had distended. They both rose, quick and animalistic. The Faded One stood still, panting deeply, inhaling air that had been denied until then, while the pale man staggered, clutching what remained of the left half of a face now bloodied and mangled by the chakra blast.

He drew his hand forward in front of his eyes, staring at the dark red of the blood with shock.

The Faded One said nothing as he advanced slowly, dead eyes registering just the grief, not the shock of the pale man who had attacked him. The pale man stepped forward, one step, two, then a run to close the gap between them. This time the man's chakra met him square in the chest.

"Eight...trigrams-"

The blows were rapid, he felt himself sucked into the vortex of the pale man's attack, soaking in blow after blow after blow yet feeling nothing.

_Crrrrrack_

Yet again, the blast echoed, making the torches flicker, and they were thrown back. The gold that had emanated from the Faded One's fingertips still crackled through the air, the remnants on the pale man's face. The man howled, a shriek of pain that evaded his understanding.

The pale man staggered, trying to stand unsuccesfully before he fell with a mundane _thud_.

Silence, as the Faded One walked. There was a muted sadness in watching the collapsed man try to stand again, struggle and grovel on the stone floor as blood splattered out from what was left of his face.

The red on the stone floor seeped forward towards the Faded One. He closed in slowly, turning the struggling body to face the sky. The pale eyes fixed on him, veins from the side of the bloody face bulged and pulsing.

He sat on him just as the other man had done to him earlier. They stared at each other, the roles reversed but the sight equally saddening.

The rain had long since ceased, but the pale man felt droplets touch his face. He looked deep into those blue eyes of the boy above him as the Faded One's hands reached out and closed around his throat. He smiled.

"You are able to kill with only remorse, but not after today. After today you shall feel my Lady's love, my Lady's pain, Faded One, Lord Nar-"

The boy wasn't slow, unlike the pale man had been in choking him. The thumbs pressed down around his pale throat, and before the accursed name had strangled itself out of his lips, life itself extinguished. The Faded One fell back, as the body of the pale man, no, a boy, a boy only slightly older than him dissolved into the night, and naught but ash remained.

* * *

He walked into the mansion, the tears on his cheeks now dry. His senses were not lying, the out-of-place nature of the mansion had dissapeared the moment he had killed the pale boy. The place was back to feeling old, dead, and in place with how he saw the rest of the world.

"Please...please let me...in..."

And in that same calming stillness was where he found her. It was a small room, but a massive door stood on the other side, seemingly locked, for the girl sat on the ground, kneeling forward and knocking away at it in vain.

He stood, knowing not how long he did. When he stepped forward slowly, she turned at the sound. Shock and fear flitted across her pale eyes, but there was the small shade of sadness at seeing him, even though he was a stranger.

She stood quickly, clothed in loose garments just like him and the pale man. She looked familiar, and the first inklings of another unknown emotion rose within him.

"You've killed my brother, haven't you?" She walked forward, until they were but a few inches apart. "H-He was all I had." She was only slightly shorter than him.

Both their hands rose at the same time, to caress or strike he could not have told, but they rose, and fell immediately at the same time.

"And now, _you're_ all I have."

Her eyes were gentle, sad, and her voice evoked more of that unknown emotion, mixed with the grief of killing the last thing she had cared for. The tears came back easily, wetting his cheeks again. Her eyes shook in distress at his show of emotion.

"Oh, y-you mustn't cry...Oh, you mustn't."

She clasped his right hand with her left, and her right hand snaked around his waist. He stood still, until he felt her move, coercing him to do the same.

_A quiet river of faintest Gold_

_Caresses the sheets ever so gently._

They swayed. The half-eaten wooden floor creaked with their movements as the dance began slowly, as if woken from an old, deep slumber. His eyes locked onto her pale, wide ones as he placed his hands around her waist in return. She smiled for the first time, and to him, yet again, it poked at a feeling he understood not.

"Brother Neji was simply protecting his Lady, you see. Lady Hinata? You must know her."

He shook his head slowly, as he swayed with her, their hands held. Her dark hair seemed to shake by itself, obeying their cadence.

_In embrace, we are one._

_In sorrow, we are one._

"She is still alive, you know. I _feel _her. I think I'm the only one who can. Do _you _feel her, inside that large room?"

He shook his head again, still moving with the dance, albeit clumsily. She smiled sadly.

"She was Lord Naruto's loving wife, wasn't she? She stayed back to protect His village. Do you know of that story?"

A shake again. Their dance showed the first signs of life now. They were not just swaying any more. Small footsteps, first her, then him, then both. They moved away from the center together, obeying that foreign instinct.

_Ameliorates the shuddering cold,_

_Whispered words echo faintly-_

She sighed. "It's as wonderful as it is tragic, you know. The evil tyrant Sasuke unleashed the deep, old abyss when he won the battle at the Valley of Endings against Lord Naruto. He left Lord Naruto for dead and returned to Konoha, armed with the abyss, thinking they would welcome him and he could start his new reign from there..."

She seemed to believe in her own tale so wholeheartedly. Her eyes were wide with fear and foreboding as she spoke of the tyrant Sasuke's return to his old home.

"Yet who should he find but Lady Hinata, who stood fair and tall to protect hers, and Lord Naruto's village. She gave everything she had, but alas, she was fated to lose, you see."

The girl's eyes became downcast, her voice coming down to a whisper.

"And the tyrant tortured her _so_, breaking her day after day after day. He spared her, oh, he did." Her lips tightened. "He made her _dance_, you see. She was Lord Naruto's paramour, and to insult her, he made her dance for him and his followers till the rest of her days, as entertainment. And when she could take no more of it, he had her taken away and _chained_...chained to the cieling. How- how cold and deadened must the tyrant Sasuke's heart have been..."

She drew herself tighter to him as they danced, the ethereal voice beginning to rise from within the door.

_In knowing, we are one,_

_In pain, we are one._

"And before he left Konoha again, the vile tyrant gave Lady Hinata a piece of the abyss. It _stuck_ to her, fusing with her very skin, and would keep her alive for evermore."

They moved apart slightly, still holding each other as she pirouetted and drew close again, a mournful smile on her lips.

"And so she waits for her Lord to enter and set her free one day, and ages have passed since." They stopped moving, both of them had neared the door.

"Did you enjoy the story?"

He nodded this time, and she smiled, placing her head on his chest contentedly. He stood still, frozen. A strange sensation took root in his stomach. He looked down at her as the last whispers of her words and their footsteps faded and silence returned. There was no grief to draw out of this time, just a slight, tingling feeling.

After some time, they broke apart. He stood by her, as she reached forward towards the door. She pressed against it, yet it wouldn't budge. She stepped back, her soft voice breaking with a sudden influx of sorrow. He stepped forward too. She looked at him as he stretched his arm and touched the ornately carved door, the gentlest of pushes.

It budged, ever so slightly. She gazed at him in adoring wonder, intertwining her hands with his. He pushed the door open with her free hand, and it swung open, slow and heavy, but willing under the touch of the Faded One. A gust of air blew at them, as if someone had exhaled, for there was no other explanation for where the wind must have originated.

"Is- Isn't it beautiful?"

He stared at the massive room. There were tall pillars adorning the sides, and in the center was a slighty raised platform. A small ray of moonlight was piercing sharply through the large window and illumining the pedestal. He heard a sharp intake of breath as the girl beside him stood in awe.

They walked forward amidst the silence, hand in hand, until they were on the pedestal themselves. The dark, silky black of his garment took on the pristine whiteness of the moonlight, and it anointed the girl beautifully with an ethereal sense of gentleness. She gazed at him with that same newfound sense of adoration.

"This is where Lord Naruto and Lady Hinata said their final vows."

He looked at her. Her eyes were wide and for the first time in a while, he could sense the deep blue of grief within her as she raised their joined hands.

"Will...will you marry me?"

The tingling in his stomach reached a high. He nodded.

"Then we shall unite, upon this altar. I know not why I feel this compulsion within me. But I feel it is..._right_ to be with you, Faded One."

He looked at her and drew breath as they stood at the altar. It was the first time she had referred to him, albeit with the title. She leaned forward. He stood still, the unknown, inexplecable feeling within him exploding, imploding, struggling to get out, struggling to exist.

And as she placed her lips on his, it stopped. Just mute, blank silence and nothing but. She drew back, smiling with what he percieved was much more grief than before.

"Thank you, Faded One."

She gently withdrew from the embrace, and caught his hands again, placing them around her neck.

"I see it now, though you may not."

Her hands enveloped his around her neck, and she pressed. He stared at her for a moment, and with the glut of emptiness filling him, complied, tightening his hold. It was quick, just as it had been with the girl's brother. She gasped, a harsh inhaling noise, and with her last breath spoke a single sentence-

"Free Her, Lord Naruto."

* * *

He fell to his knees as his companion slowly dispersed into the eerie darkness of the room. The tingling that had filled him was nowhere now. He knelt, and his hands met a warm, soft garment. It was a scarf, bright red and richly woven. He wrapped it around his neck, only for it to feel appropriate a second later as the cold took a sharp incline.

He looked around, behind him, and the doors moved of their own accord.

_CRASH_

The doors slammed close, snuffing out the torches and what remained of the light in the room. It was only him in the room now, and the singular ray of moonlight illumining the pedestal.

**"EEEEEEEEEAAAAARRRRH-"**

Just him, the moonlight, and the Dancer, no longer chained to the cieling as she descended with an otherworldly scream, her shackles finally unleashed.

* * *

The massive form dropped to the ground, deformed and warped. She was huge, thrice his size and her face was half-eaten, a melting purple dripping from the side of her half-face.

He backed up as she stood, hunched yet impossibly towering. The same dark purple of her face coated her torso, covering every inch of it and dripping off her body, yet it never ended, it never extinguished.

_The abyss pulls. It consumes..._

She stood bent, staring at him. Her neck, hands and legs were twisted at odd angles, held aloft by a warped spine. Yet the moment she started walking forward, the dissonance faded. What should have been a mishappen walk was a slow, graceful dance as she moved with light steps belying her broken form.

_Step. Step. Step._

The footsteps echoed across the chamber, as it advanced. He rose to a standing position, waiting, waiting. She walked, bent and blind yet with direction. He watched her limp hands take on a torrid sense of purpose, then nothing, then purpose again as she drew close. She felt benign, harmless, yet up close she towered, massive and twisted by the abyss. He side-stepped, expelling the same gold chakra he'd extended before, moving towards her side, an angle her arms could not reach.

He watched her gracefully step forward past him, and so he wasn't prepared for the broken arm to snake back and grab him.

_Crunch_

She tightened her grip for a moment, then flung him bodily across the room.

"Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhh-"

He landed hard, his ribs taking impact against the ground head-on. There was no pain ripping through him like it should have, just the dull mitigation of mobility. He staggered to his feet, only to see her eye fixed on him, just a few feet away. The lone eye stared at him, wide, dead and mad, and he should have evaded her, but he _couldn't; _The beginnings of that same feeling he'd felt when he'd looked into _her_ eyes, for they were the same pale shade of white.

This time her claws dug into him, she held him for a second in front of her, and then flung him again. He thudded painfully against the altar, and he lay still. He couldn't move yet. Muscles had torn and bones broken, rendering him immobile as she advanced for the final time. The Dancer would claim her prey.

_Step. Step. Step. Step._

He thought of the girl as he looked into the Dancer's eyes. He thought of how she'd felt held against him. He seemed to be able to recall _that_ sensation, oddly, amidst an array of unsuccesful rememberances.

_Step. Step. Step._

She was close now, and so was his end. Her breath misted against the unnatural chill of the chamber, fogging his vision. The Dancer knelt, her hands nearing him, her dead eyes fixed on him.

And then, a pause. She simply stared at him in that one moment, and he stared back, a strange yet familiar gaze.

And it was that moment that the Dancer could understand but the Faded One couldn't, that seemed to make the difference, as he bounded, his chakra funneling from his feet and propelling him into the air. His left hand was immobile, but his right was enough to expel all the chakra he could as his hand wedged into her abyss-ridden face.

"EEEEEAHHHHHHHH-"

She shrieked, and he with her as her face buzzed, and then imploded. She fell back with a crash, half her face now blasted off. The good eye focused on him, and he knew she would now step only to kill and naught else.

Yet he was ready. He wove through her legs, avoiding the twisted hands he couldn't predict. Another chakra-infused jump, and he was on her back. This time the gold rippled through her spine, blasting a hole clearly through her mid-riff. The broken Dancer's fury took on a new edge. Her head twisted impossibly around what should have been bone, her eye still tracking him as her claws dug through him, through his leg.

And it was a bloody, broken body that lay on the ground as the Dancer crawled over him on all fours, shaking, shuddering and weakened. Her pale, rotten face hovered over his.

_Her hands enveloped his around her neck, and she pressed._

"_Thank you, Faded One."_

He brought his arms forward, small and broken as they were, against her neck. They were less than half her neck's size, yet it was enough. She seemed to know too, dead, but only obeying what the abyss, and Uchiha Sasuke had once told her to do.

And so with the dance coming to an end, Hyuuga Hinata found her resting place finally, the two final expulsions of chakra from the boy's hand shooting through her neck and snapping it clean off. The Dancer would lay still, dead in an age that had long, long passed her own. The moonlight shining onto her limp, dead body receded, replaced by the slow warm gold of the sun, and to him, she seemed smaller and sadder than ever before, ever the devout wife that she had been in her age. The body slowly evaporated with the coming of dawn, and left behind only an old, half-broken helmet.

* * *

He hobbled, adorned with a silver helmet that covered half his face, just like it had the Dancer's. The red scarf was now loosely draped around his shoulders in a kingly fashion had it not been for his broken state. Dawn sported a liquid silence, and in that silence, Princess Kaguya stood suddenly when she spied the glint of the morning sun against his helmet. She watched in awe and pride as the boy took the Dancer's helmet off and placed it slowly into the base of the fire. And as it burnt, she knew he would finally feel a second sensation, a companion to grief.

He looked up, gashes, bloody and broken bones and all, eyes full of two torrid emotions.

The Faded One fell onto the grass warmed by the flames, wracked with pain he could suddenly feel. He screamed, and screamed and screamed, the agony of broken bones and bloodied skin ripping through him the moment he'd discarded the Dancer's ornament into the fire.

But most painful of all, he felt the girl's _love _as she'd danced with him, and stood in front of him on that altar and pressed her lips to his in that foreign show of emotion, the devotion and adoration of someone who'd stood by him in a world that couldn't crashing down on him and mixing with grief, eliciting the tears and screams that would subside slowly and agonizingly in their own time.

Princess Kaguya shed her tears, watching the writhing boy. For love, after all, was pain. And Hyuuga Hinata had known it the most, chained to the cieling.

_A quiet river of faintest Gold,_

_Caresses the sheets ever so gently._

_..._

_In embrace, we are one._

_In sorrow, we are one._

_..._

_Ameliorates the shuddering cold,_

_Whispered words echo faintly-_

_..._

_In knowing, we are one,_

_In pain, we are one._

_..._

_Illumines the blinding dark,_

_Painting shades of light across_

_what's left of our retreat._

_The moments are ever slight,_

_..._

_Ephemeral. We are one,_

_In silence. We are one, yet_

_Within darkness, as we see,_

_Come the Light, we cease to be_.

* * *

**End.**

**If the previous chapter was about grief, this one had to condense the idea of love. The Faded One now feels both. I must say I quite like writing my protagonist, silent as he is.**


End file.
